


and i will carry you home in my teeth

by sourcheeks



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Country Boy Will Graham, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24886768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sourcheeks/pseuds/sourcheeks
Summary: Will pressed his lips together, looking over the photos. Nothing grisly. No crime scenes. Jack knew he wouldn't want to see the crime scenes. Just normal photos. Eight girls. All missing, presumed dead. It hurt to look at them."Why did you have to show me here, Jack? Could have met me at the damn boat shop." He looked out the window. Molly and Walter were playing on the shore. Seeing Walter twisted a knife in his chest.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Molly Hooper, Will Graham/Molly Hooper/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [picht](https://archiveofourown.org/users/picht/gifts).



Will looked at the photos on his coffee table. "Why are you showing me these, Jack?"

"Because you need to see them," Jack replied firmly. 

Will pressed his lips together, looking over the photos. Nothing grisly. No crime scenes. Jack knew he wouldn't want to see the crime scenes. Just normal photos. Eight girls. All missing, presumed dead. It hurt to look at them. 

"Why did you have to show me here, Jack? Could have met me at the damn boat shop." He looked out the window. Molly and Walter were playing on the shore. Seeing Walter twisted a knife in his chest. 

Eight girls. Eight families now missing daughters. 

"You weren't at the damn boat shop, Will." Jack sighed. "I need you."

"Aw, hell." Will rubbed a hand over his face. "What do you need me for? You have the FBI lab. You have Heimlich at Harvard. Bloom at University of Chicago."

Jack slammed his hand on the table. "And I've got you down here fixing fucking boat motors!"

"Maybe I like fixing fucking boat motors!" Will snapped back. "Maybe I like not looking at corpses all day, Jack!"

Jack rubbed his temples. "I need you, Will."

"I do the same thing everyone else does, Jack."

"But you don't do it the same way." Jack leaned in. "I need your head, Will." 

"My head's not for sale."

Jack's face tightened. "Eight girls, Will."

Will looked at the photos. He ignored the way that it twisted the knife in his heart. "They're all the same age. Roughly the same body type. Hair color."

"Any hunches?"

Will bit his lip. "You won't find the girls alive." The words scratched on the way out of his throat. "The last one may have a chance. But don't hold out hope."

"We haven't found any bodies." 

Will carefully gathered the pictures. He ordered them from the girl first missing to the most recent. He turned the stack of photos face down. He couldn't look at them when he said it. 

"He's eating them, Jack."


	2. Chapter 2

"Fudge the psych eval," Molly suggested, snuggled up against Will's side.

Will watched Walter play in the surf. "Yeah. I could."

"But you aren't going to." It wasn't a question.

"I'm not the only one with a family, Molly. Those girls… I mean, imagine if something happened to Walter."

Molly sighed. "I would want someone looking into it. Someone like you."

Will gave his wife a squeeze, kissing the top of her head. "I'm gonna come back just fine. I'm not letting anything come between us. I promise, Mol."

Molly smiled, kissing him. "You'd better. If you die, I'll kill you myself."

Will Graham did not look like an FBI agent. Hannibal thought he looked rather like a house painter who had put on a suit to appear in court. He was lean and freckled by the sun, his curly hair fried with saltwater. He still smelled of saltwater, even this far inland. And dog fur, and cheap aftershave. 

"You're rubber-stamping me." Graham's leg bounced like a Chihuahua. He fidgeted with his wedding ring. He did not make eye contact. Despite all of this, he was relaxed. 

"I want our conversation unimpeded by legal documentation, Mister Graham. I understand you have some reservations about accepting this offer. Is that correct?"

"It's what needs to be done."

"That is not what I asked, Will."

Graham sighed and fidgeted. "I have a family, Doctor Lecter."

"I am aware. A wife and a stepson, correct?"

Graham looked wistful. "Yeah. Molly and Walter. They're the reason I'm so hesitant to do this. But… they're also the reason I know I have to."

"You feel a special connection to the disappearing girls, given that you have a child of your own."

Graham nodded. "We have very little to go on. He's killing again and again and again, girls who all look just the same. Like he's unwrapping chocolate bars looking for his golden ticket."

A macabre analogy. Hannibal knew Graham recognized it by the embarrassment on his face. "And who might this killer be?"

Graham shook his head. "Could be anyone. A family member. A scorned lover. A stalker. All I know is that he is obsessed with a girl who looks like the girls who have been going missing." Graham rubbed his jaw. "I don't have a damn face for him. We could spend a hundred years chasing after men we've invented."

"What is he doing with the girls? No bodies have been found."

Graham's face twisted unpleasantly. "He's eating them."

Hannibal hummed thoughtfully. "Then he's not working alone."

Graham's head snapped up. He stood and started pacing the office. "No. No, he couldn't be. That's a lot of meat. He has accomplices even if they aren't aware of it. He might be feeding these girls to his family telling them it's elk or something." Graham grabbed his coat. "I need to call Jack. Thank you, Doctor Lecter."

"Anytime, Mister Graham." Hannibal barely got it out before Will was out the door. 


	3. Chapter 3

“The killer has a family.” Will was very firm on this point. 

“We don’t even know if he’s killing them,” Price pointed out. Wishful thinking. All of them knew it. 

Will looked at the photos taped to the walls. “Why else would he need eight of them?”

“Maybe he’s making a harem or something.” Zeller’s nose wrinkled. 

Will shook his head. “No. No, that isn’t it. He’s a cannibal,” he insisted. “I know he is.”

“So, what?” Katz pursed her lips. “We’re looking for someone with medical knowledge?”

“If he has any, that will be incidental. No, we’re looking for hunters.” Will paced the lab, drumming his pen against his palm. “A hunter with a family… the girls are going missing from college freshman orientations, right?” A rhetorical question. Will needed to work through it out loud, though. “His daughter. He’s targeting girls that look like his daughter. Empty nest syndrome.”

_ “What?”  _ Zeller’s face screwed up. “You cannot  _ possibly  _ know-”

“We’ll cast a net,” Jack interrupted. “Anything else we should know?” 

“Look at job release records. We’ll want to start with men who were fired soon before the killings started.” Will paused. The next words out of his mouth were sour on his tongue. “And we’re going to have to investigate the daughter as an accomplice. She’s probably his bait.”

“I know you are worried about your husband, Mrs. Graham.”

Molly Graham regarded Hannibal coldly, her arms crossed over her chest. She was beautiful in a similar way to Graham, windswept and sunspotted. He imagined she had a lovely smile when she was not furious. “Yes, Doctor Lecter. I am worried about my husband. How astute.”

“Mrs. Graham, I will ask that you do not take your anger towards the situation out on Jack Crawford or myself. And certainly not on your husband.” 

Molly Graham’s glare could freeze lava. “Why did you let him onto the field, Doctor Lecter?”

Hannibal sighed. “Your husband was of sound mind. I believe you have been a stabilizing presence for-”

“Not investigating murders has been a stabilizing fucking presence!” Molly put her head in her hands. “Even if nothing happens to him. Even if he doesn’t get shot or stabbed or whatever it is this awful man he’s chasing does. He won’t be the same when he comes back.”

Hannibal gently squeezed her shoulder. “Your husband is a forensic scientist, Mrs. Graham.” 

“A forensic scientist.” Molly sneered. “Yeah, I know. I’ve seen his degree. I watched him use it to fix a crack in the wallpaper.”

“You feel your husband no longer wishes to be a forensic scientist.”

“If my husband wanted to be a forensic scientist he wouldn’t be a boat mechanic.”

It was a hard line to argue against. Someone with a reputation like Graham’s should have found easy work. If not in the field, then in a classroom somewhere. He’d made himself difficult to find, seemingly intentionally. “I wish there were something I could do, Mrs. Graham.”

“Call me Molly, Doctor Lecter.” Molly’s smile was weak, and forced, but there. 

Hannibal smiled. “Of course. You know where to find me when you need me, Molly.”


End file.
